A seaside stroll

Wednesday 12th October - Thursday 13th October

We rolled over as the alarm went off at 9am and peeked out the curtains. The smell of wet trees, rain, storm and sea was enough to tempt us to stay another day. Well why start cycling in this downpour when we have a beautiful home here. Plus we could walk to the nearest town and pick up supplies for all the food we'd been craving - porridge oats, bread, baked potatoes, eggs, bacon, flour (pancakes of course!), cheese, strawberries, avocados, milk, cereal, tea... Just homely basics we were longing for! In fairness, I should mention that I'd made poor Ant cycle to the nearest town last night when we got here so that we had at least some of this for today, which meant we could enjoy a lazy morning of tea drinking, cereal eating and bacon frying to fuel us enough for the walk back to town to get more food!

The walk itself was beautiful. A good stormy day, spitting with rain, trotting along the black volcanic sands, next to the roaring Pacific. With sea on our left, a forest on our right and a deserted beach ahead we walked for hours. Well passed the town. But that was more than ok. We were in our element. Then we headed through the beautiful smelling forest aiming back towards the town where we picked up a little lady dog, very friendly and keen to follow us (we gave up our many failed attempts of shoeing her away and let her just trot alongside us). She even waited patiently outside the shop for us, with only a few strawberry ends for a reward!

We took a slightly more direct route back along the beach, and found our new friend was there every step of the way. She even snuggled in closer when other bigger scarier dogs had a go at her, despite my very clear explanation that I wouldn't protect her in a fight... Clearly she can't speak English! About a km away from home when we thought we might have finally lost her to a ginger cute looking boy dog, we turned around to find them both stalking us. At this rate it wouldn't be long before the pied piper would be jealous! So we strolled along the beach with our new found family, watching them chase birds, each other, and their tails, and eventually left them sitting outside the gate to our cabins while we baked potatoes, made pancakes, drank tea and beer, and watched a film.

What a glorious day. It will be super sad to leave here tomorrow...

...so we didn't!! Oops!


The heavens were flooding open today and our cabin was so lovely and warm. So we stayed another day.

We walked the other way along the cliffs, watched surfing, scrambled across rocks, ate chips and steamed seafood broth at the restaurant, with a beer of course, wondered into , gained boy ginger stalker dog again for mist of the walk, then snuggled down again sheltering out the rain.

What a glorious couple of days in this crazy spot in the middle of Chile - how lucky we were to stumble across this place.

Day 47 - Sunshine on a rainy day

Chanco to Buchupureo (70km) Tuesday 11th October

Today was another beautiful days cycling. This time the hills and farms allowed us to get regular glimpses of the roaring pacific ocean, its massive surf and the brave and talented soles venturing out with their boards!

Our early start meant we could do something we rarely do - stop to make a second breakfast that was still early enough not even to call brunch! If only we have more morning will power every day could be like this! We were armed with fruit, yoghurt, bread and avocado that wed picked up from the supermarket which should be enough for today and once we reached the P town we allowed ourselves the treat of sitting by the beach watching the sea for a whole 20minutes eating said second breakfast and watching men collect slate from the rocks and take it directly to their house over the road to build with - kinda cool!

As well as the lure of the sea, we'd chosen this stopping point as it was just before a big climb (that looked between 15-20%) up the cliff to get out of town... Let's delay that a bit!
When we tackeled it we realised we weren't wrong on our estimation of its steepness, but we had learnt from yesterday - there would be no powering up these short sharpies, but instead we would sit back and spin our little legs in the lowest gear. If I'm honest, even that is tough at 20%, but our bellies filled with yoghurt and our minds with sea we were able to take it in our stride.

This set the scene for the day. Sharp ups, sharp downs and the occasional flat running alongside the sea, with strong head winds of course. And as the day went on even the occasional drop of rain. We couldn't quite believe that at first - must be birds spitting on us... Nope actual rain drops. Infrequent enough to be pleasant rather than drenching thankfully.

About 20km into this beautiful day we were anxious. The road turned from red on the map, to yellow. This had meant rippio was imminent in the past, but with the maps her being as reliable as Southern Trains, who knew!?  Just after the yellow was supposed to start and about 30km in, we stopped on a bridge for lunch, which itself looked fairly well kept, and very newly tarmacked. Could it be the yellow had recently turned to red?! Having learnt not to count our chickens in South America, we decided just to take things as they came.

Our lunch stop atop the bridge was beautiful. It ran about 50m high above a steep tree lined gorge that took a river to the sea about 100m in front of us. Beautiful. And we had home made avocado sandwiches to make us happy!
The road continued to sweep up and down steeply along the cliffs, but also continued to be tarmac - despite the challenge of the 15% gradients, we were loving it. We even stopped to take a photo of a caterpillar navigating its way between the tarmac and a mudslide.

The only dilema of the day was where to stay. There was the town beginning with B, which would come first, then the town beginning with C which would come second (sorry, can't be bothered to write them out in full!). Both were in the guide book (a rarity for the tiny places we've cycled through in central Chile) and 'B' sounded more beautiful with a boutique hotel out of town but definitely less amenities, and C sounded more promising on the restaurant front. Hmm.

We did what only we could do, ignore the choice, keep cycling and see what we fancy when we get there. The centre of B was fairly deserted with a few small hospidajes and several dogs. Let's keep going and see what we find. About 2km along and having decided the hotel was lovely but probably not lovely enough to warrant its price tag, we swept down into this beautiful cove, with big waves, brave surfers, a cool quaint looking restaurant and signs advertising cabañas.

Having decided we should definitely keep pressing on only 2km ago, we now decided we should definitely try to stay. It was simply too beautiful and isolated a place not to enjoy. Relieved that there was someone at the reception for the mirador cabañas (wood cabins on the hill overlooking the sea but sheltered by big eucalyptus trees), we took one for a night and got excited about cooking our own breakfast tomorrow in our little home (I might have made Ant cycle back to the nearest town for supplies on the promise of wrapping up and watching surfing when he got back). 


Tonight though we would try that restaurant - it looked too good to miss and there would clearly be fresh fish brought in here daily (and I've just about got over my fish phobia post Peru sickness - it only took 3 months!!).
As we sat, drinking Chilean wine and eating our muddled up food order (starters for mains, mains for starters, all very tasty!) we noticed the skies had opened and we were now snuggled inside watching the rain sheet out of the sky. There was something very comforting and strangely inviting about this. We watched a film back in our cabin and snuggled in for the night.  It might take a fair amount to make us leave this lovely part of the world tomorrow morning!

Day 46 - Interval training - oh dear!

Constitution to Chanco (70km) - Monday 10th October (bank holiday)

After a huge breakfast to sit on top of the enormous feast last night, we set off to the one place we needed to go - the supermarket to buy more food of course! A few empanadas, some 100% juice (wow no sugar, sweetener or preservatives... We might be dreaming!) and ice cold water and we were ready to start our day.

Feeling slightly coldy, I tentatively asked Ant if he expected any big hills "Na, just the rolling stuff".

An hour later, when we were still slugging up the huge steep hill out of Constitution, we thought perhaps we'd not quite read the contour lines right! We were finding it tough and for once actually sweating - a new phenomenon on this trip. It was finally humid enough for our lips not to be cracked, but that evidently had it's downfalls.

The top of the climb came and we reached the rolling section, which sneakily had caught us out. You see, small sharp ups can usually be taken rapidly, standing up in the same gear - blast them out, maintain speed and enjoy the ride. This is exactly what we were both doing, and enjoying it initially. But after our lunch stop at 30km (which despite cycling enticingly close to the Pacific was inland enough to feel more farm less ocean), we realised our error. By beating it up the short sharp inclines, we'd effectively spent the whole morning interval training and now our legs had disappeared.
It was ok though, as we set off we realised the ups were getting steeper and longer, and the flats and downs were throwing a huge head wind at us (of course!) making us work hard to go down and well as up and ensuring we had absolutely no rest at all!! Needless to say we were now plugging up hill in our most spinney gears realising the error of our earlier ways!

We had two options for our home tonight, Chanco a small inland town (does it have a hostal?), or a place on the coast with a complicated name beginning with P, a further 10km along.  P looked more inviting, coastal with the promise of accommodation, but we hadn't yet decided our route towards conception - we could go inland for better roads, or stay on the 'route del mar' and possibly hit rippio, but have the sea besides us.
As I snuffled and sneezed away, we decided to aim for Chanco and make the decision tomorrow. It was closer and we were nackered.

The cycling was actually very beautiful. The fresh sea air, rolling farms, pine and eucalyptus forests and the occasional glimpse of the pacific, and relatively traffic free - a ride that our minds enjoyed, but our legs definitely did not!

So as we rode into Chanco, we said our hotel prayers and asked a kind looking lady if she knew anywhere to stay: "oh yes, lots of hotels on the square". Wow! Amazing! Not what we would expect from this sleepy old town! And as we rolled onto the square, not what we should have expected from this sleepy old town either! What were we thinking! Everyone knows in Chile you have to ask at least 3-4 people the same question and take an average of their answers and then you probably get the right answer. So having only found one (not many!) deserted and very shabby looking hospidaje (which would be more than sufficient if we could find the owner and a key!), I decided to ask the same question again. The next answer was simply " hostal? No. None here. Nothing. Not even a hospidaje". It should be noted this was said whilst standing almost in front of the hospidaje. Like I say take an average: Many add one, divided by 2 - that should mean there is at least one other place to stay here somewhere.


 We went cycling loops around the square and found a street with no sign of life but a Hostal sign almost hidden from view. After much exploring of the premises, Ant eventually found the owner who said we could have a room, with a double bed and bathroom, for one night - and what time would we like to leave in the morning? (hmmm we want to say something early in the pretense that we will be on the road before dusk, but we both know that's pretty much impossible with our sleeping habits "11am". This was quickly followed by a counter barter from the lady "no, 9am"... What?! Why ask then?!... We continued "ok, 10am"... "Hmmm..." She was clearly not just disappointed but also ashamed and frustrated " I have to make the bed for the next guests arriving in the afternoon"... Seriously how ling does that take! It doesn't look like you'll be doing that much cleaning from the look of the room!... Then finally after some.thought... "ok 10am"... Few... Even that was early for us. It would mean waking up at 8am, but at least we'd be on the road early.

So having settled into our home, we went about exploring the town (I fail to believe it really is a town if I'm honest!) for some food. Nope. Not much of that either! Thankfully we found a shack that sold meat baps 'churassco' (a new 'delicacy' that we've started to encounter that is not dissimilar to kebab meat, though only slightly less elephant's foot, and slightly more cow... But not much!). Would we like it with cheese of Italian? Hmm what a question. We managed to work out via hale from the very smiley couple who ran the place and by recalling a comment from our Santiago walking tour guide, that Italian was not a tanned smooth talker, but actually sources that look like the Italian flag - avocado pure, mayonnaise and (in this instance to Ant's relief) fresh tomato.

We asked if they sell beer (we felt we'd probably need it to get this down)... Nope... Wine? The smiley man smiled more... "oh you mean cola cola... Yes we have that...". He winked, smiled and took an empty glass coke bottle and filled it from a carton of red wine. Enjoy your coke. We did! And the sandwiches weren't that bad after all!

We didn't want more than one though so we ventured to the supermarket to look for our next course. Yep there was a huge supermarket here... Probably bigger than the town itself... Relief!

A few yoghurts and breakfast supplies later and we picked up a Chilean sim card from an unlikely shop in the square... At least we now had internet and the ability to call deserted hospidajes if we needed to.

We strolled around the streets to walk off our rather small supper, found a very large old tall tree for Ant to fall in love with and hug a little (boy likes trees), and stumbled across a very stumbly man, stumbling out of some sort of ex services beer festival. We said 'hola', he burped, we started walking away, he made friends with a lamp post that had kindly agreed to help him stand. We called him Gerald (he looked like a Gerald) and discussed the night we'd imagined he'd had, whether he had any friends that might help him, whether we should help him - although the answer may have been yes, we also concluded that we were by no means best placed to help him. I mean what would we do - approach and grab each of his two arms, whilst communicating "common let's get you home" in the only way we could, which unfortunately would of course have to be a game of charades that let's face it Gerald would probably have struggled to see let alone interpret. We decided this scenario would only mean more trauma for Gerald who would have seen two strange looking gringos approach, start acting out house in a 'kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut' sort of fashion, then grab him by the arms and try to seemingly kidnap him... We thought it best to just walk on and conclude that he must have some friends who will eventually notice his absence and tow him home.

We got to the end of the street almost back at the square and decided to turn around to get one last glimpse of that huge tree... And plop, there was Gerald laying down star fish on his back asleep... Hmm. Poor Gerald, he'll probably feel that in the morning!

Day 45 - so much more than oranges

Lloca to Constitution (65km) - Sunday 9th October

After two cups of tea and a leisurely breakfast in our own little home (and Ant's disappointment when the only thing in English on TV was Bridget Jones, which he'd already been forced to suffer last night!), we eventually hit the road.


And what a glorious coastal road it was too. Flat, right next to the sea, wind in our faces (of course but hey we're used to it now!), and not too much bank holiday weekend traffic.
As we'd passed many shops and restaurants on the way to Lloco, we assumed we'd easily be able to pick up lunch on route. 20km out of town and we soon realised this wouldn't be the case! The holiday resort esplanades had quickly turned from shops and empanadas, to trees, cows and fields. Luckily it was beautiful enough, and we were strong enough, not to worry about the lack of lunch too much. We pushed on and when the road turned inland for 20km we decided to stop to scrape together what lunch we could muster from our food bag: Half a bag of mini oranges, two bananas and some crisps; a lunch of kings! Still so very grateful to the kind truck driver for his orange donation. Oh and some sugar syrup mixed with sweeteners that called itself pineapple juice!

The turn inland also brought with it a few more hills to grind up, but we didn't mind, we had Spotify to keep us company (and road crossing spider number two, but I'd prefer not to think about him right now if you don't mind!!).
The road got more busy and slightly less beautiful as we approached Constitution, but we had managed to find ice cream at a shack on route so we were happy!

As we came into town we were full of dread - warehouses, industrial estates, supermarkets bigger than a big Tesco - not quite the idyllic seaside town we'd been peddling for. But at least once we hit the centre we were likely to find a hotel...

... Or were we?! The plaza approached, as did the noise, bbq smoke and jovial music that can only mean one thing... A bank holiday weekend festival (we later found out it was a festival of food! Amazing!!). But it did give us a few nervous moments cycling around the plaza worrying the hotels might be fully booked. We found the 'neuveu hotel constitution', expensive but with a room, so we checked in and scrubbed up, ready to hit the town as only one can, when one is a knackered crazy gringo cycle tourist on a bank holiday Sunday at a food fete. A pork kebab, three sausage sandwiches (yes three please... No don't look at me like that señor - I'm a hungry lass!), and a rack of pork ribs later and I was finally full! OK so Ant did have one of the sausage sandwiches and half the kebab, but in this race we can safely say he was falling very far behind! I'm sure he enjoyed his toasted bread, portion of chips and natural mango juice as much as I did my dinner though (yeah right!!?!).

Whilst Ant was purchasing his mango jugo natural, I was busy, kebab in hand, asking the store next door exactly what they put in their big jugs full of strawberries and dark red liquid, "um... Red wine, strawberries, and I think the strawberries were soaked in Pisco brandy..."; "brilliant, I'll take one!".  And after all of this we stumbled (almost literally!) across a beer tent, with multiple stalls selling multiple ales!!! Two pints later and it was time to stumble back to bed, but not after Ant's final supper piece - a visit to the chocolate tent and 4 coconut truffles. And I HAD to get some popcorn for the road tomorrow - and might have been super happy when the smiley lady serving it put a scoop or two in the bag for free!

So we trotted back to our room slightly merry, but incredibly happy and ended the day with me explaining to Ant that I'd always thought I had a lisp and always thought I couldn't say 'S' very well - see I can't even say 'Southsea show'. Well the last part at least was true, I couldn't say 'Southsea show', but as far as I can remember I've never thought I had a lisp and have always been able to say my 'S's'... Except when I'm drunk of course! (it just so happens the next morning I could say Southsea show perfectly!).

Day 44 - Isle of Wight meets the wild west!

Llico to Lloca (30km) Saturday 8th October

You may think we chose to have an easy day today - you'd be wrong, very wrong! You may think we were only on the road for an hour or two - 30km right? - you'd be wrong, very wrong! Ok so by this point you might be asking how high we climbed. If I told you 500m you might think it was only a 1.5% gradient - eminently doable right? Again wrong I'm afraid!

I shall explain: After waking up to a beautiful view of the sea, we braved the hotel mafia and their strange breakfast etiquette (we also had to brave their 80s/90s chill out CD that resembled the 10pm "Mellow magic" of the 90's - 'nothing compares' to wet wet wet's 'wishing well' that provides 'endless love' (OK so I tried!). We cycled out the town passed the political drumming band rallies and again had a route decision: 1 - at least 20km longer, closer to lake, more chance of tarmac, definitely some hills; 2 - shorter, by the coast, possible sea views, steep climb up onto plateau, definitely not tarmacked. After checking out the road we opted for 2 - It seemed well compacted so we could make good progress which made taking the shorter route a no brainer.

We plugged on up the steep (12%) initial gradient, excited and happy to be here, especially as the surface seemed friendly. We knew we had about 20km of this before we descended onto the flat tarmacked coastal road, so thought we'd make the most of the adventure.

We also thought the road would get worse once we got further along, but had no idea just how much! It wasn't enough that it threw in several climbs and descents greater than 25%, but someone also had the bright idea to literally throw on sack after sack of loose beach pebbles, lovely huge curved ones, to mend the road -probably ok in a car, but impossible on a bike. So it soon became a case of:  cycle up until you think you're going to get thrown off as your legs can't power fast enough to manage the rubble; push the bike up the steeper stuff; grit your teeth, hold on tightly enough to make your hands numb, and cross your fingers on the fast and bumpy way down; then repeat.

Now I don't know if you've ever tried pushing a loaded touring bike up a hill, but it's hard work! I imagine it's not dissimilar to pushing an elephant uphill on skates! So you then rest at the top and prepare for the downhill payback that only yields a frightening squirming and squiggling on a bike not firmly planted beneath you.

During one of our mid way stops, a truck passed us and a friendly face leaned out the window - "would you like an orange?" - oooh "yes please" says I, then they handed us a whole bag of delicious and juicy mini clementines. Wow! That was super cute and such a lovely gesture. Then half an hour later when perched by a gate eating empanadas, we cheered on a runner and offered him an orange - he must surely be finding this as tough as us. He then turned around, ran back up the hill (as we've already established this is no mean feat!) and asked if we would like lunch at his house!? We said thanks but we should push on. He said "no I'm serious I can cook for you, its down there by the lake". Ahhh. The words down there, and lake, were enough to make us say a definite no and explain that if we went down, then unfortunately that would mean we have to then come back up! But two incredibly kind and generous offers in the space of an hour.
So we pushed on, having only covered about 10km in two hours and eventually found the descent to town. Initially a very doable track of hard mud - easy to navigate and quick progress. But then the gradient got steeper and the surface turned to sand. Ant and Jamling with slightly stronger nerves managed to stay riding mist of the descent, whilst Alan and I did some sort of half horse half monkey trot down most of it.

Covered in sand and in need of an ice cream we tumbled off the mountain and reached the shop next to the tarmack at the bottom of the descent.

Well that's 17km of our day done! Lets see how far we can push on!

Smooth tarmac under our paws and the soothing Pacific on our right we headed on through the coastal towns, concluding that this was rather like the seaside towns of Sandown and Shanklin, with a cowboy feel - Isle of Wight meets the wild west!

The sight of a campsite with free use of kayaks almost had Ant tempted (knackered Ant? Never too much to Kayak!! Muppet!), but when we saw the pitches were less grass, more brambles, and came complete with their own chickens and horses, we decided to push on to the next town in search of something a little greener with warmer showers.

We cycled up and down the sea from esplanade that is Lloca and were relieved that we had our pick of hotels, hostals and restaurants. But Ant, with his sixth sense wanted something more. A Cabaña. We'd seen these advertised for weeks now - they are a huge part of the holiday scene. But without a cell phone for Chile yet, it's kinda hard to call the numbers on the signs. Queue man on side of street with cardboard sign advertising cabañas. Well let's give it a go! Turned out to be a lovely little holiday wood cabin, with a living room, tv and kitchen, all much more reasonably priced than the hotels -brilliant! They even had a hose pipe to dust off the boys.

So after a huge bike and kit cleaning session we found some fried fish and chips (when in Rome!) enjoyed the Sunset, and snuggled into our new home.

And breathe out!

Tipsy...

Well Tom did tell us to practice drinking so we sort of did... Two pints later and I'm struggling to pronounce "s's"!

What a brilliant night... !! We stumbled across a "gasteonomical festival" aka food festival with a beer tent, music stage, chocolate tent and lots and lots of bbq stalls. I think I've died and gone to heaven! Whilst im struggling to say "Southsea show" and eating my own weight in meat (the sausage stew man was delighted when I asked for two more sausage with bread, and you should have seen the guy's face when I asked for a rack of ribs!!) Ant's still struggling to eat anything that isn't fruit, bread or potatoes. This has led to an interesting diet of lots of warm toasted bread (and some funny looks from the guys toasting it next to heaps of meat), 4 chocolate truffles, and all the brandy soaked strawberries from the bottom two thirds of my red wine/brandy/strawberry drink (that's a thing here apparently!).

So brandy, red wine,  and a few ales later and were back in our hotel feeling rather pleased we stumbled across this dilapidated old seaside town on their bank holiday weekend.
What a bloody awesome night! Hicc! Smile! Happy!

Xxx

Ps sorry I'm posting out of order, have two days of cycling to report, but wanted to capture our merriment!! He he he!

Day 43 - if you don't fall over you're not trying hard enough!

Pichilemu to Llico (65km) with over 800m ascent - Friday 7th October

What a tough but glorious day! We knew cycling along the coast wouldn't be easy - coast roads have a nasty habit of following cliffs up and down fairly steeply and this one was no exception. I never thought I'd find a hill that would be so tough it makes 8% seem like a walk in the park - but today managed it - repeatedly! And the howling sea wind, cold and starkly gusting into our faces most of the day did little to help us, except cool us down (in Ant's case a bit too much), but the beautiful Pacific ocean to our right for the first half of the ride made it all hugely worth while.

I was loving every minute of the first 40km. The fresh sea air, invigorating and uplifting; the stunningly beautiful scenery which didn't look too dissimilar to the southern coastline on the Isle of Wight, with the added bonus of some eucalyptus and pine forests; and a challenging but not at all traffic heavy road. A sea girl at heart, I was in my element. Ant was suffering a little more though and I've learnt that this usually only means one thing - as much as I'd like to think I've got strong enough to compete with Lizzie Armistead (or Lizzie Dignan now as Ant keeps telling me with a sad - oh she's off the market sort of face!), its actually most likely that Ant's got weaker, probably more cold coming on.

As the road turned away from the coast and headed towards the first of the slightly inland lakes, the wind really started to show its might. It must have been some sort of valley - lake geography that made it unsure of its strength or direction, but had us clinging onto our handlebars as we got thrown left, right, pushed forwards then stopped to a halt. Now would be a jolly good time to stop in a shelter and have lunch we thought, so we did. A few pastries and crisps later and we were debating our two road options: Turn right, stay closer to the sea, climb a bloody big hill, stay atop the bloody big hill for a bit, then drop into town; or turn left, do at least 10km more on what looked like a dirt road, but hopefully tackle less hills. Google recommended option 1 so we headed in that direction for 500m until we saw the road turn to sandy gravel and tilt up about 25%. It didn't take us too long to conclude that option 2 was probably better.

So we headed off along the lake on a relatively easy gravel path pleased with our decision, especially as there were several trucks (why?!!) coming in the opposite direction - can't be that bad a road if they can get here.  Ant's head was now lifted - this felt like an adventure, and I was still high as a kite - today was really fun.

As we said goodbye to the lake and hello to the hills, the road inevitably started to degrade. More rocks and sand, but still manageable - for the moment at least. As we go higher deeper into the forrest, it felt more and more rural. There were lots of unsigned paths (can't really justify calling them roads now!) that weren't even on the map so Ant had to concentrate hard to work out our route. We passed two old ladies out for a stroll who were super keen to tell us that yes this was the right way (and lots of other advice we didn't understand), though one of them had a "you don't want to be doing that love" kind of face, which didn't fill us with confidence.

They were right, we didn't want to be doing this! 25% hills, sandy, gravelly, rocky, bumpy. Lots we couldn't cycle up, some we could just about brave. At least we were moving, if only slowly. In a slightly flatter (read 10%!) section of one of the climbs I was relieved I could actually cycle and stop pushing... But not for long... Oooh sand...  Oooh sliding... Eeek... Stopped... Eeek sank... Aghhh pedals... Unclip unclip... Too late... Plop... Ouches!

At least the first fall of the trip was into sand - could have been a lot worse! Just a few bruises and a LOT of sand in mine and Alan's pants!
Oh and did I mention we'd now entered the territory of the big fat mosquito? Prick - ouch, slap you bugger, ouch, oi stop it, yuk, grrr, bugger off, ow, what even through my jersey?, hey that's my cycling glove you shouldn't be able to bite through that?!!

Ant, although annoyed at the mosquitos, somehow managed to keep his head high - I was angry, angry and frustrated. I couldn't cycle and was getting bitten left right and centre... Grrr.

Eventually we reached the turning that would lead us down into town. A bumpy gravel road, but downhill so at least we could cling on and bump our way down, getting thrown left and right and gritting our teeth! Mountain biking, although fun, is somewhat difficult on a loaded bike that has a mind of its own!

Soon enough we'd entered the strange little town of Llico. A sleepy place lined with lakes and forests. Composed of only one long road lined with a few small shops. On the outskirts we saw a camping sign and decided to check it out. Ant borrowed Alan and whisked off into the campsite while I checked out the wildlife signs... What a spider that can kill you... Man I hope my Spanish is wrong!!

Ant's summary was a beautiful campsite in the forrest with showers, but no hot water. Covered head to toe in sweat, sand, dust and gravel, all mixed into a sun creamy paste, we thought a hot shower might be preferable, plus we hadn't yet seen the town or sea at the end of the road... FOMO. So we pushed on for another 3km just to see if there was anything else before settling on a night of cold showers, spiders and death.

Thankfully we didn't do our usual thing of settling for the first place we saw, mainly because the first place was so run down and shabby that cold showers spiders and death seemed preferable! Eventually we came to the end of the road and the sea, which gifted a nice looking hostilleria. They had a room and several grumpy, mafia like, old men owning it. Oh well nice enough room, with glorious terrace overlooking the beach and the promise of hot water - we'll take it!

When we'd cleaned off our sandy sun creamy paste and gone for our pre dinner stroll (with the sole mission of finding dinner!) we realised that no more than 50m more down the road was a glorious looking hotel and spa... Tum tee tum, we could only console ourselves with the fact that we may have saved money - but when the restaurant was very reasonably priced and tasty and the staff super friendly we couldn't bring ourselves to check their room price list - we'll just keep pretending it was prohibitively high and that we made the right decision! "ah" said the manager. "you should have stayed here, we have a pool and jacuzi, you could have relaxed in"... You seriously need to stop talking now dude... Seriously... Shut up... Nope... Stop...!!! 

So a tough day that beat us up but left us feeling alive and glowing with adventure. I shall leave you with Ant's summary:
"Beautiful riding, weary Ant, volatile Emma. Strangely today, more than other days on this trip, really felt like an adventure. We changed our plans and route several times based on how we were going and how we were feeling, didn't really know where we'd end up, ended up somewhere awesome by the sea... And that all felt really cool."